1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a system for the display of prices associated with merchandise in a store and in particular to an electronics systems which allows the prices associated with any item in the store not only to be displayed but to be changed from time to time as frequently as desired.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In stores, items are typically placed on shelves above a label showing the price of the item and perhaps a price per unit quantity such as weight or volume. To change prices, an employee must walk the aisles of the store, removing the old price labels and placing new price labels in the price label slots on the shelves. This takes time and is expensive. Moreover, employees make mistakes and prices cannot be changed rapidly to reflect special sales or the desire of the management to change prices on goods to respond to local marketing conditions.
Various approaches have been taken to deal with this problem. Thus, one system includes an electronic display in which prices are transmitted from a central terminal to the various displays Each display is identified by the UPC code associated with the product, the price of which is carried in a particular display. Thus should the store wish to change the price on a given product, the UPC code of that product is transmitted, followed by the new price. The particular display coded to receive the transmitted UPC code then will respond to the receipt of the UPC code and change the price displayed on the label to the new price. Typically the electronic display module associated with a particular product contains its own receiver which is capable of receiving the UPC code and the new price and then sending back to the transmitter station a signal indicating that it has received the new code and changed the price in response thereto.
This system has the significant drawback that the receivers are expensive, take up space, and use electric power. Also, the need to provide so many receivers leads to use of simple unsophisticated receivers to keep the cost of the system down; this results in a degraded communications capability.